


Chapter Fifty-Two: Little Pistol

by CavalierConvoy



Series: MTMTE Series One: Shoot Straight with a Crooked Gun [53]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers Generation One, Transformers Generation Two
Genre: Dubious Ethics, Dubious Morality, Gen, Interrogation, Moral Dilemmas, Other, Post-Divorce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 17:15:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3986302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavalierConvoy/pseuds/CavalierConvoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two stels mark the downward spiral of the <i>Little Revenge</i>'s crew, as Starscream attempts to drive wedges between his wardens only steels their resistence.  With communications cut off from home port and time running short as Maximo's Legion bearing down on Cybertron, doubt of their success and tension between former friends may cripple the mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chapter Fifty-Two: Little Pistol

And now I want brimstone in my garden  
I want roses set on fire  
And I, well I want what’s best for me  
And I, I think I know just what that means  
Just what that means  
—["Little Pistol"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6f9Wc1yFsQ) by Mother Mother, from _The Sticks_

_Little Revenge_

Somewhere in the Orion Arm

Three Stels ago (a quarter-stel prior to acquiring Wreckers' Spoils)

****  
  


"Oh, he's a bitey one," Cavalier jumped back. The Legion Cybertronian lurched forward, dragging the chair a metre with his attempt at a head butt.

"We'll fix that," Octane shook out his arms. "Brat, bolt the chair to the deck. I'll keep him occupied."

"You're brave when they're tied up," the Minibot observed, taking a point driver and circling around the back of the chair as Octane leaned forward, bracing the chair's arms.

"Oh, I'm brave as long as they're not firing at me," he correctly. "You're not gonna fire on me now, aren't you, gashole?"

"Mortilus take your spark!" the Legion spat.

The tall triple-changer guffawed as the rivets embedded into the ground with a hiss and a hard clank. "Really? That the best you could do? Frag, this is gonna be easy. Brat, what's the bar pressure on that driver?"

"Between one and two kilobars, depending on what's loaded," she answered, "Right now, it's sterile titanium alloy, so I'd say in the high range. Will cut through standard plating like nobody's business."

"Leave the driver here and cue up Protocol: Blonde."

Cavalier gasped, stepping back, laying on the melodrama to border sarcasm. "Not Protocol: Blonde! Protocol: Blonde is only to be used in a last case scenario!"

"Counter-argument: our ship's home port is neutral, thus not subjected to the rules as stated by the Autobot Ethics Committee. And as I am not an Autobot ... initiate Protocol: Blonde."

"Initiating Protocol: Blonde. Just remember to clean up afterwards," Cavalier squeaked, exiting the hold.

Five minutes later, Octane was in the cockpit, pouting. "That was anticlimatic."

"Either _Reservoir Dogs_ had reached Legion Territory, or your attempts at karaoke will have to be brought up to the Ethics Committee for evaluation," Sandstorm chortled.

"To be honest," Cavalier added, "he was waving the point driver about in a threatening manner."

"The idea was to get information out without harming the captive," Skyfire reminded. "I would say we were successful."

"So what do we do with him now that we got the location of the Warworld?" Sandstorm questioned. "I was kinda counting on Octane finishing him off."

"Says the guy from the Planet of the Pacifists," Octane chuckled.

Sandstorm removed his machine pistol from its holster and flipped off the safety. "Fine, I'll do it."

"Sandstorm, stand down," Artemis ordered. "Skyfire, Cav, sweep for the Warworld. We'll rendezvous with the _Xantium_ and dump the prisoner off with them."

"Can we weld him and Starscream together at the arm and have them fight with knives to the death? You know, Vulcan mating ritual and slag?" Cavalier questioned. "That would be fun to watch, at least."

"One would think after two stels, I would have proved my place with this crew," Starscream growled.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, your ability to lay in wait is impressive," Artemis retorted. "The fact you're the brunt of jokes means you've been promoted to a necessary liability, to be tolerated with marginally less hostility than we did when you first came on board."

"The fact you were able to say that in one breath is impressive in itself, wench," Starscream countered.

"At this rate, we might start trusting you, oh, when the universe completes total heat death," Octane added. "Give or take a few billion stels."

"What does it take to convince you that the success of your scheme is in my best interest?" Starscream demanded.

The argument was old — two stels old. And it was reaching the point where Artemis was standing, preparing to drag their political prisoner back to his cell.

This time, Skyfire stopped her, a gentle hand engulfing her shoulder. "Wait." Soft-spoken and bordering on stoicism, the giant rose from his seat, towering over the former Air Commander, his former _conjunx endura_. "I want to hear him out, this time. I want to hear what he has to say, what he can contribute."

"Thank you, Skyfire; always the voice of reason — "

"Starscream, my patience with you is thin." More so than Artemis's insults and snide remarks, Skyfire's passive-yet-cold "get to the point" comments struck Starscream.

Optics flickering, Starscream held up his hands as though surrendering. To Artemis, he ordered, "Sit down and let the scientists talk, brute. Or, better yet, go take out your pent-up aggression on the trash in the hold."

"Starscream," Skyfire warned. Cavalier whined, punching coordinates into the console and attempting to will herself invisible.

"Look, all I'm saying is we need a plan of attack that doesn't involve rushing them with a prayer and hopes for the element of surprise," the Seeker explained, keeping his hands up. "We don't have the physical support of the rest of the Wreckers, nor political through Iacon. We might be able to convince the Sirians — thanks to Arty — " he made a production of a nod and wave to the glaring Autobot, "to give us a hand, but we all know that Legion will give organics less quarter than they do us." He cupped his chin, holding his elbow, then looked back up at Skyfire, then Artemis. "Give me a quarter-megacycle, Sandstorm can keep an optic on us. I'll get more information."

Artemis crossed her arms, bowing her head with a growl. "Dammit," she snarled. "Sandstorm, if he pulls any funny business, shoot him."

"The hostage or Starscream?" Sandstorm questioned.

"Preferably both," Artemis grumbled. Skyfire cleared his throat, a warning. Without skipping a beat, she regarded the giant with a "What?"

"I assure you, I have no intention of betraying you, taking into consideration that I am reliant on you piloting this scow, as I don't possess the proper protocols to access its navigation board. Seeing that you purposely locked me out." Starscream directed this to Artemis with a wry smirk. "Come, Sandstorm, let us interrogate our hostage further."

Glaring after their long-term prisoner as Starscream and Sandstorm exited to the hold, once the doors closed, Artemis cried out in frustration. "Why the hell do we have to put up with him?"

"He's playing by the rules," Skyfire muttered, coaxing her to sit. "There's not much we can do, unless he oversteps his boundaries. The problem is, he knows them well, and is using them to his advantage."

"And why aren't we beating him to the draw?" Cavalier demanded.

"Because," Octane interrupted, "that would require you to think like a 'Con."

"In other words," Artemis groused, sinking into her seat and leaning forward, elbows on knees, "we gotta throw him to the turbofoxes and make it look like his idea."

*

_Wreckers' Spoils_

Approximately 30 AUs from Shaula

Lambda Scorpii System

A Quarter-Stellar Cycle later

_I dragged Sky into this. My petty grudge got us in this mess. We should have just blown up the ship._

Energon was pooling in her head, the hangover from that morning returning with a vengeance, coupled with the crippling guilt that she fragged up.

The cables loosened, and while she expected to be dropped, instead she was righted, set down on her feet. Artemis maintained a hold on her weapons, which she sheathed the firearms but kept the Forge ready.

"You want to talk? Then talk." She looked around the room; it was the control hub, silent, empty. Starscream had taken the time to clean; no bodies, no mech fluid, pristine as though freshly mined and forged. There was no door, no archway, no indication of entry or exit. Resorting to her default of stalking the room, scanning for someone, something to hit, she swung the hammer against the wall, if only to make noise. Which aggravated her headache. Which further fuelled her anger.

"I know what you're doing, Flyboy!" she shouted. "Classic interrogation protocol -- first step: isolation. Got news for you: it isn't going to work. So unless you're going to magically produce a lawyer for my defence, you're slag out of luck."

_You never fail to amuse me, Arty._

"Cut the scrap and let's get down to business." She fell into the captain's chair, slamming the head of the Forge onto the base, hand on the hilt. Leaning forward, she rested her opposite elbow on her knee, optics continuing her scan. "You cost us a lot of time and energy with this plan of yours. You're gonna have to convince me not to tear out your spark casing."

 _What I told Skyfire,_ his voice was over her shoulder, next to her audio receptor; clamping down on her weapon's butt, she set her shoulders, resisted the urge to face the voice, _was that your plan would have killed us all. Maybe not the Autobots and Decepticons as a whole — no, they would continue fighting. But you and your band of sorry misfits would be wiped out, which would leave me at a severe disadvantage._

"You had no problem finding new friends," Artemis growled.

_You wanted a Warworld, and here I am, delivering one to you. Well, maybe not in the manner of which you were expecting, and with the current ... situation ... escalating, I think renegotiations are in order._

"For frag's sake, Starscream!" Standing, Artemis spun to face her former friend, but found herself the only one in the room. Not breaking pace, she continued. "Do you have any clue what's going on here? Are you so stuck in your own little universe that you don't care what happens, just so long as you get to rule your patch of the junkyard? Because that's what's going to happen — Cybertron and pretty much every neighbouring system is going to be one big scrap pile and you'll be the only one around to enjoy it."

_It goes beyond that, Arty. So far beyond that. I wish you were capable of seeing beyond your own myopia._

"Enough of this hiding," she ordered. "Where the hell are you? And where's Skyfire?"

_We'll be joining you shortly, rest assured. Yes, I did have my reasons to do what I did, and not all of them were completely selfish. I took advantage of a situation, and had you listened to me, to leave with Skyfire in the first place, you'd have understood._

"Instead, you picked up where your friends left off in torturing me."

He had no retort. After a quarter-cycle of inactivity, she continued. "What? You want me to apologise for fragging up your nonexistent plan? How somehow it was my fault that you just had to kick me while I was down? Please -- I've heard your excuses for far too long."

 _When did you become so black and white?_ This was delivered as a whisper, once again by her audio receptor. _You used to see both sides of a story and find the common denominator._

"We're done here." She swung the Forge onto her shoulder and marched to the far wall. Winding the hammer, Artemis brought it down two-handed against the metal with a resonating clang. A cable wrapped around her wrist halting her next swing, before she was pushed against the wall, a weight against her back.

_Enough! Do you not see this is counterproductive?_

"We should have left your 'pod where it was on Betelgeuse IV-- "

_And where would that have gotten you? You're the one who wanted to toy with the laws of physics, do the impossible and rescue a mech who is most likely dead. Ever thought that maybe that's the reason why I'm here, haunting your every move? A counterbalance, you see._

"Just shut the frag up!" Artemis snarled, tightening her grip on the Forge. Whispers flooded her audio receptor, too jumbled to make out what was being said.

 _And you know that when all is said and done, in the end, I'm right._ He chuckled; the wall reverberated in beat. _Have you ever just stopped fighting and thought about what is transpiring around you? Thought about what was missing? You see, I know why you came back. Not for me, never for me. Not even for the Forge. You came back because you felt empty, without purpose. You should thank me -- I convinced them that it was an EMP generator, that I knew how to disarm it. Could you imagine the chaos it would have brought had Jhiaxus gotten his hands on it?_

Anger seeped into her fuel tank, souring. The revelation sickened her. She opened her mouth, but the words would not come.

 _It's all right, take your time to figure it out, if you haven't already._ The wall she was pinned to fell away, and she stumbled into another room, landing hard on her knees.

"Artemis!" Skyfire bolted to her side, kneeling down and grabbing her shoulders. "Thank Primus! We --"

"I've made a mistake," she whispered, falling against him.

Skyfire opened his mouth, but held back on his question. Instead, he helped her stand. "You took on a noble quest, Artemis," he explained, "a challenging one. You gathered those who would be best suited for the challenge to aid you, who believed in this quest, believed in you. You've had help along the way, we've gotten so far, so close — and I can assure you, you've made no mistake."

"I know what happened to the Matrix," she snarled. "Starscream has it."

 

 **NEXT CHAPTER:** Opus Dei


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